sus and sustainability : the overlooked yet central role of taste

In 2020s London, it has become commonplace every week or so for yet another planning application to be submitted, in which a modernist building with timeless design is destined to be demolished (or to be reclad), only to be replaced with architecture that already looks dated - even before the ink on the CGI has dried.

Ironically, all this is happening under the nose of a built environment in which the whole discourse is about sustainability and retrofitting. So why is this paradox?

Developers, agents, architects and planners use objective metrics to structure their arguments: Developers and architects talk about technical specifications and industry standards, whilst planners talk about contextualism and townscape. Yet the real reason is somewhere else, but no one is addressing it.

It all comes down to taste: how it drives us, how we understand it, how we harness it, how we influence it - and how we manufacture it.

For planners, it is about their stylistic preference for more historical architecture, which is buried under layers of discourse on urban grain and other topics borrowed from art history. So the next time a planning officer signs off the demolition or recladding of a modernist building, they need to ask themselves: “Am I doing this because of contextualism, or am I doing this because of my own or my peers’ stylistic biases?” If so, how can cities evolve as living organisms, not ossify as moribund relics?

For developers, agents and architects, it’s “what the market wants” which is code for what competitors are already doing, also buried under layers of discourse about carbon emissions and BCO standards. So the next time a developer engages an architect to demolish or reclad a modernist building, they need to ask themselves: “Am I doing this because this building is no longer fit for purpose, or am I just latching on to popular design trends?” If so, how can development stand out from the competition, rather than be generic?

If the mindset doesn't change, and if the question of taste is not faced head on, more buildings will be demolished - and there will always be objective metrics to justify it: we're repairing the urban fabric, we're making the city better, we'll plant a tree in Norfolk, we'll reuse 25% of the structural frame. And from a business point of view, if the question of taste is not faced head on, developers will always be behind their competitors and they always play catch up with market trends.

So taste can be a very useful prism by which property can be processed to address the consumer market, as well as champion great causes like sustainability. Spreadsheets and carbon calculations mean nothing to the consumer market of potential end users. Creating desire does. So the argument should not be about whether the current building satisfies market trends, but about whether the current building can set a market trend. Seaforth proved this with the refurbishment of Space House London .

Not every modernist building can be salvaged, and not every modernist architecture needs to be revered. It’s just that the gratuitousness by which these buildings are dismissed needs to be interrogated. These buildings from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s may present themselves as B-list buildings, blending into the background, but some of them do hold immense opportunities to stand out, if they are refurbished with imagination and flair. Some, like the latest victim in the West End, have such soul, such history, such panache. They can be Swinging Sixties meets Scandi Noir meets Brazilian joie de vivre. Instead, they are being superseded but what can be best described as the lovechild of Downton Abbey and Dubai.